Feminist Focus programme and Cinema Regained selections revealed for IFFR 2026

Our final IFFR 2026 Focus programme will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the National Organisation for Women (NOW)’s founding – a major moment in the history of the Civil Rights movement as well as Second Wave Feminism. Additionally, we’ve unveiled our first selections for Cinema Regained, IFFR’s realm for rethinking film history, which will once again present recent restorations and works that offer new perspectives on cinema’s past. 

The Future Is NOW Focus programme will explore women’s cinema from different periods, confronting early hopes with later developments – with a combination of classic works and world premieres. The selections will spotlight authors, countries, and practices which have historically been underexplored, with a special emphasis on animation. Subjects including education, communities, and histories will be covered as part of the offering, alongside sex, religion and cinema itself. 

The programme will be anchored by premieres, including: Three Ways of Returning
(2026) an omnibus project by IFFR-known auteurs Xiaolu Guo, Andrea Luka Zimmerman and Mania Akbari, which offers three autobiographical essays in alienation and the search for belonging; and Josephine Ahnelt’s Wellen wende (2026), a conversational documentary comparing several women’s postpartum experiences, alongside discussions on similar subjects already had in classics like Kathleen Shannon, Irene Angelico and Anne Henderson’s short Challenge for Change: “… and They Lived Happily Ever After”(1975). Additionally, the line-up will feature Caroline Leaf and Veronika Soul’s Interview (1979) and Ulrike Putzer and Matthias van Baaren’s Casting tapes (2020), two of several essays on what it means to be a woman in a filmmaking environment defined by men.

Celebrating their world premiere at IFFR 2026 as part of the Cinema Regained programme will be Hungarian avant-garde master Péter Lichter’s The Thing in the Coffin (2026)
an appropriated footage version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula; and Ryan A. White & A.P. Pickle’s Mickey & Richard (2026), a loving portrait of 80s gay porn icon Mickey Squires. Among the restorations featured, audiences will discover Liao Hsiang-hsiung’s Tracing to Expo ’70 (1970) a dazzling mix of musical, travelogue and mystery, which looks at the first World Exposition held in Asia; and Gerald Potterton’s Tiki Tiki (1971), a crazy meta-movie featuring animated monkeys making a live-action Soviet-style fantasy epic. Additional restorations will come from Brazil, Mexico and the Czech Republic, while further attempts at making new sense of film history will be provided by directors from Germany, France, Poland and Italy.

Vanja Kaludjercic, Festival Director at IFFR, said: “The Future Is NOW and Cinema Regained reflect the way IFFR approaches cinema: by returning to works and histories that deserve a more attentive place in the conversation. With The Future Is NOW, we revisit a formative moment in the history of feminist movements and follow strands of women’s filmmaking – both historical and contemporary – that have often remained at the margins, across different eras, geographies and forms. Cinema Regained continues to open up new ways of reading the past, presenting restorations, archival discoveries and experiments that shift how we understand film history. Together, these programmes offer audiences a perspective that is informed, curious and grounded in the belief that cinema’s past remains essential to how we read the present.” 

Jennifer Lynde Barker, The Future is NOW co-curator, said: “The Future Is NOW features artistic approaches outside the mainstream with a particular focus on animation as a rich source of creative output for women from the 1960s to the present. The programme highlights important insights and stories about what it means to be a woman and a human being in the complex and transformative landscapes of the past six decades. From feminist interventions to beautifully crafted evocations of female pleasure, and from inspired animated visions to exuberant collaborative work, the programme traces the legacies of women’s unique melding of private and public spheres.”

The complete programme for IFFR’s 55th edition will be launched on the 16 December 2025.

Contact: IFFR@ddaglobal.com